Industry says law expensive, obsolete

Scaffold Law shielding building trades needs change, advocates say

Updated 11:30 am, Wednesday, February 13, 2013

ALBANY -— If changes to a law adding hundreds of millions of dollars to construction costs are to occur, industry advocates say it will likely require the leadership of Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

"We need everybody," said Lawsuit Reform Alliance of New York executive director Thomas Stebbins on Tuesday during a day of lobbying that included 175 contractor, business and insurance representatives. They met with about 75 lawmakers to get a majority of them to support measures to change the Scaffold Law, which gives workers injured on public and private job sites the right to sue owners and contractors for negligence and hold them absolutely liable.

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Privately, lawmakers said Cuomo needs to step in to get legislative action.

The alliance conducted its biggest lobby day yet after more than a decade of trying to change the 100-year-old law. In the past, business groups have led fragmented efforts to repeal the law, which is unique to New York.

It was created before workers' compensation and other protections were passed, they said.

This year, the groups united behind a proposed amendment to the absolute liability standard that blocks individual contractors from arguing their case for actual or partial liability. The goal is to change the law to encourage workers to take responsibility for their own safety. In addition the group wants to allow juries to weigh the actions of workers hurt on the job in gravity-related or elevation-related incidents, in some circumstances.

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver showed no interest Tuesday in supporting a bill sponsored by his new majority leader, Monroe County Assemblyman Joseph Morelle, that supports the changes. Silver said the existing law was created to protect workers.

The bill pushed by Morelle, also sponsored in the Senate by Patrick Gallivan, R-Elma, calls for comparative negligence for personal injury, property damage or wrongful death from a work site fall. The change would take effect if a worker committed a criminal act; used drugs or alcohol; failed to use safety devices furnished at the job site; or disregarded employer instructions or safe work practices in accord with safety training programs of the employer. Morelle said he hasn't talked to Silver about it "directly."

Larry Schwartz, Cuomo's secretary, said it is unclear if reforms will fit into the governor's priorities for this year. "I've asked people to get together and see if there's a middle ground. We haven't been able to reach it," Schwartz said on Tuesday.

Cuomo recently called changes in the law a hot topic that is problematic because of opposition by trial lawyers and unions.

"There's a 300 percent difference in insurance costs between building in New York and New Jersey — if you can get insurance," Elmendorf said.

Manhattan trial lawyer John Zaremba said the law should go unchanged to protect some of the most vulnerable and hardworking people who are not in the position of knowing who is at fault when they get hurt on the job.

"If you take away the Scaffold Law, you take away a guy's right to go after those responsible," he said.